TheCadets praise Novoye Vremya. The Novoye Vremya crew praise
the Cadets. The “people’s freedom” party is pleased with the
minister’s concluding speech on the budget, This party, which is always
pleased with all ministers, is now pleased with the consent of the Cadets, as
leaders of the Duma “Centre”, to approve the budget of the
Duma-dissolving ministry.

“Ifit were necessary to prove that the general discussion on the budget in
the State Duma had not been fruitless,” Rech (March 28) pompously
opens its editorial, “the finance minister’s concluding speech would
be a most brilliant proof of it.”

Whatis that brilliant proof?

Theproof is—“not a shadow had remained” of the minister’s
former “arrogantly didactic and irritably ironical tone”.... The
minister’s reply was correct in form, and in content it revealed “a
tribute of respect for the power of Duma criticism”; the minister
mollified the Duma with the assurance that it had greater rights than it had
seemed to have; he paid compliments to the “people’s freedom”
party, compliments which “the overwhelming majority of the Duma deserved
for its subsequent voting” (for agreeing to send the budget to a
commission).

Yes,indeed, these are the Cadets’ brilliant proofs of the
non-fruitlessness” of the Duma debates. The fruit does not
consist in the faintest trace of serious improvement in the real state of
affairs. Nor is it that the masses of the people
have learned something and understood certain aims concealed behind the
constitutional tinsel. Nothing of the sort. The fruit consists in the minister
having become more decent, more obliging; he is more obliging to those who, in
the name of “the people’s representation’s, consent to all
sort of compromises.

Theliberals consent to prostitute the people’s representation to
underpin the foundations of Black-Hundred rule. On these terms, the
government of Stolypin & Co. consents not to dissolve the Duma (for the
time being...). Both sides are filled with joy and mutual admiration.

Today’sNovoye Vremya, while missing no opportunity to revile the
Cadets for the “Jewish” composition of the commission on religious
faiths, at the same time publishes a long dissertation by its Duma reporter on
the reasons for its being inadvisable to dissolve the Duma. “Even from the
standpoint of the extreme Right, it would be inexpedient and harmful to dissolve
the Duma at the present moment.” The election law cannot be changed
without a coup d’état, and if a new Duma is elected in accordance with the
existing election law it is possible that “we may lose the present Centre
of the Second State Duma”. According to the Novoye Vremya
reporter, that Centre “begins at the Octobrists and stretches through the
Party of Peaceful Renovation, the non-party deputies, the Poles and Cadets, as
far as the Trudoviks”. “Undoubtedly the present Centre holds a
strictly constitutional-monarchist viewpoint and has, up to now, made every
effort to engage in organic work. In any case we shall be deprived 01 that
Centre [if the Second Duma is dissolved]. We shall be deprived, there
lore, of a budget approved by the Duma, for I assume it to be beyond all
measure of doubt that the budget introduced by the ministry—with a few
insignificant [mark this!] changes—will be adopted by the Second
Duma.”

Thatis what Novoye Vremya says. The argument is extraordinarily
clear. It is an excellent exposition of the point of view of the extreme
Rights, who at the same time now wish to save the Duma.

Inthe upper circles of the ruling oligarchy there is a struggle between two
tendencies—one that wants the Duma dissolved and the other that would
preserve it for the time
being. The first of these policies is one that Novoye Vremya has long
since evolved, explained, defended and, from time to time—or rather at
all times—still continues to defend. The ruling oligarchy, however,
has another policy. There will always be time to dissolve the Duma, and if
it approves the budget it may be easier to obtain a loan. And so it is more
advantageous to wait. The threat of dissolution remains, and
“we” shall keep the pressure of this threat constantly on the
Cadets, which will force them, in a way obvious to everybody, to shift to
the Right.

Thelatter policy is undoubtedly more subtle, and better from the standpoint of
the reactionary landlords’ interests. The former policy is crude, coarse and
hasty. The latter is better planned because the dissolution is “held in
reserve”, while the liberals are being used by the
government. For the Duma to approve the budget is almost equivalent to
consenting to endorse a bill of exchange for a bankrupt. It is more expedient to
get both the bill extended for a further term and the
Duma dissolved, than to dissolve the Duma at once without attempting to get the
bill extended.

Apartfrom the approval of the budget there may, of course, be other similar
bills of exchange. Have not the Cadets, from the landlords’ standpoint, already
improved their agrarian bill? Let that bill pass through the Duma; then
let it go to the Council of State for consideration and further
improvement. If “we” dissolve the Duma at that moment, we shall
have two, and not one, endorsed bills of
exchange. “We” shall possibly be able to obtain from Europe, not one
thousand, but two thousand million. One thousand million in the event of the
State Duma approving the budget, i.e., on the basis of “a state
economy that has passed through the fire of a strictly constitutional
test”. The other thousand million in the event of a “great agrarian
reform passing through the fire of the strictly constitutional creative
activities of popular representative body”.

TheCouncil of State will make Slight corrections to the Cadet
agrarian bill, a bill that is already overflowing with the most diffuse phrases
that define nothing. In actual fact everything depends on the
composition of the local land committees. The Cadets are against the
election of these committees by universal, direct, equal and secret ballot.
The Cadets favour equal representation of landlords and peasants, with
control by the government. The government and the landlords do not risk anything
in adopting the basic idea of this superb liberal bill, for
such committees, with the benevolent co-operation of the Council of
State, Stolypin & Co., will no doubt, will most certainly, turn
“compulsory alienation” of the landlords’ land into compulsory
enslavement of the muzhik by means of new and ruinous compensation payments for
the sand, swamps and tree-stumps set aside for them.

Suchis the real significance of the government policy and the policy of the
Cadets. By their treachery the liberals are helping the landlords put through a
smart deal. If the peas ants—the “Trudoviks”—continue to
follow in the wake of the liberals, despite the warnings of the
Social-Democrats, the muzhik will inevitably be fooled by the landlord with the
help of the liberal lawyers.

Notes

[1]
From the fable by Ivan Krylov (1769-1844). The English equivalent is, roughly, a mutual admiration society.—Ed.